Could We See Todd McFarlane Art Inspired Marvel Figures From McFarlane Toys???

Well....I've enjoyed Marvel Legends for the past 20+ years. It's been one of...........no, scratch that.........it's been THE DEFINITIVE superhero action figure line of all time.No one has or ever will top it.But that said, my interest in ML has abated.......mostly, but not yet completely. I've disagreed with far more than I've been impressed by, and my buying has reflected that. I cherry-pick the heck out of this line now, and the price-point...........filters things even more. I still look on, out of curiosity and still intend to get ( or at least consider) certain characters, as..........IF........they appear, but yeah.......I think I'm nearing my swan-song with ML.

So far this is going to be 3 inch Page Punchers, so nothing really of note.

McFarlane just announced Multi-Brand Licensing Agreement with Hasbro. This DOESN'T have a direct impact on Marvel Legends since Hasbro doesn't actually own the Marvel license, and therefore this wouldn't give McFarlane access to Marvel. However Hasbro has been pretty clear that they are moving away from the manufacturing side of the business to focus more on licensing out the brands they do own to other companies (IE Power Rangers, Transformers, GIJoe, D&D). The recent news about layoffs really shouldnt come as a surprise to anyone because when you quit manufacturing stuff you no longer need to employ a workforce of manufacturers and designers.

So where this might eventually impact ML, all this begs the question of whether or not Hasbro will actively compete for the Marvel and Star Wars licenses when the current licensing agreements with Disney come to an end????

McFarlane recently did a Hawkman action figure based on his look and "incarnation" from back in 1994. Long black hair, organic wings, scar across his nose, dark gray/black pants....a more "feral" Hawkman, as it were. Then Mcfarlane puts him out in his traditional green/yellow/red colors and costume....but its just a repaint, no attempt to make it the classic figure.

On 11/29/2023 at 6:31 PM, RobertD said:

Diamond's already got the contract on Marvel 7" scale, though. Historically, companies won't license out the same scale to more than one company, exclusivity is usually baked into the contract.

Great point. Even though I actually mentioned them in my comments I somehow completely forgot about that. I don't buy them and IMO they are just terrible. No consistency. No regard to scale. A vast difference in sculpt quality from one product to the next. I guess I just completely refuse to acknowledge there existence. Of course I kid.

On 11/28/2023 at 11:54 PM, leokearon said:

No interest in artist specific figures or Macfarlane doing Marvel characters.

For a brief time I did want artist specific figures, but no more. If you take just a few of the great artists- the Masters, i.e. Neal Adams, Gil Kane, John Romita, Dave Cockrum, for example, you'll get very excellent but very different interpretations of characters and your figures end up looking like they all were made by different companies. George Perez Sub-Mariner won't look like John Byrne Sub-Mariner.

Now if they were to do a specific niche line, thats another story. But hey, I need hasbo to just get the basics right and consistent before we go off like this. If they can't or won't distinguish between an awesome outcome like the Heroes Reborn Iron Man, and utter drek of Armpit for Hire, they need to stop and do some self examination.

That Iron Man is a thing of BEAUTY. HOLY COW. Even if you don't care for that model of armor....WHAT a great job they did there.

McFarlane's work, especially on spiderman, is so iconic, at least for me as a child of the 90s. I would love to see at the very least, some McFarlane-inspired figures in the legends line. I think one of the biggest draws for me when it comes to comic book characters is the near-infinite number of interpretations there and continue to be. I don't see why McFarlane would be any different.

On 11/29/2023 at 4:56 PM, AndyL said:

With that they could both have separate contracts. McF can have a Marvel 7" line while Hasbro keeps the 6" line and Hasbro can do a DC 6" line while McF continues to do it's thing with the 7" line. I mean it's a similar case where Hasbro has Fortnite's 6" line while Jazzwares continues with it's 4" line.

Diamond's already got the contract on Marvel 7" scale, though. Historically, companies won't license out the same scale to more than one company, exclusivity is usually baked into the contract.

Now this is an awesome discussion. I often wondered how many people thought like I did about McFarlane's stuff.

Personally I think it looks good. But there are some major scale issues. Sometimes even more so than there are with MS. But at least McFarlane's sculpting is fairly consistent. I do think the animated stuff is completely ridiculous. And evne though Batman is the boat that floats the entire DC empire I think he concentrates far too much on that corner. I love his Page Punchers stuff and his Spawn remasters and I've picked up some DC and some of the other randos on sale or special that are just too hard to pass up. But the truth is the truth and they are far inferior to ML and in many ways to DCUC. Even thought they have much more articulation than McFarlane had in the past they are still more or less statues with a little bit of movement. And the added articulation is clunky at best. McFarlane's even pretty open about almost despising articulation and only did so to keep up with the competition. And it's clear he's pretty much stalled out at the 24 point spot to keep the sculpt in tact. That being said I really wouldn't mind if he did some of those artist specific character and let the customers chose. Though I doubt they would be action figures but more like the statues he used to produce. Maybe that iconic Spider-Man pose where he's on the giant web on his tippy toes and finger tips. Or the gray Hulk busting through the Hulk marquee. Or Wolverine with Hulk's reflection as @bashpics99points out. I can get down with that. But as far as action figures I just don't think they could touch ML.

Now if they wanted to trade license or share license I could see that. If you think about it ML and DCM are completely different lines outside the licensed parts. First off in that one is 6" and one is 7" and completely incompatible. Even though a lot of people still insist they are. Just put Captain America up next to Batman. Not even close. And also that McF articulation is only to more or less qualify it as an action figure an is clearly secondary to the sculpt. Unlike ML will sometime sacrifice sculpt for articulation. With that they could both have separate contracts. McF can have a Marvel 7" line while Hasbro keeps the 6" line and Hasbro can do a DC 6" line while McF continues to do it's thing with the 7" line. I mean it's a similar case where Hasbro has Fortnite's 6" line while Jazzwares continues with it's 4" line. Maybe it could be temporary. But maybe we could finally get some characters from the opposing lines to match up correctly with each other. If we could just get the major characters out there from both sides to match up I think I would be forced to buy them.

On 11/29/2023 at 3:45 PM, Reno said:

As a general rule, I'm usually all for consumer choice and increased competition. So there's definitely that... and maybe he would make characters that we know that Hasbro isn't ever going to do.

However, as someone who has bought a fair amount of McFarlane product - I honestly feel it is quite inferior to the work that Hasbro and Mattel are currently doing in their lines. Yes, there are positives and negatives with all of the brands. There are certainly some things that McFarlane is doing better than the big 2. However in general, I still strongly prefer what the big 2 are doing, Hasbro especially. There is certainly room for improvement from all - but that's not really my point.

However, McFarlane has certainly shown they can be quite good. Some of my favorites that he's done for the DC line are New 52 Frankenstein, Frost King CTB, Ghost Maker, Godspeed and Future State Jace Fox Batman. The Batman Beyond wave he put out early on as a Target exclusive was also quite good for the most part. They've also done a very good job with some of the movie figures, perhaps their best work has been on that. I've also bought several figures across his other lines as well including Spawn, Mortal Kombat, Princess Bride, Avatar (both kinds), Dune, My Hero Academia, etc. Honestly there are far more misses than hits, though. Scale, proportions, attention to detail and outdated / less than ideal articulation are the biggest pain points. Unique sculpting and price point have been McFarlane's biggest upsides - but he's now re-using a lot more sculpts and prices are increasing (because that's just the reality of the business, and eventually he's got to make money even if he's a private firm and not answering to shareholders like the other 2 are).

My take is that, sure I'd like him to be able to put out a few Marvel figures per year - but I wouldn't ever want him to get the master Marvel license. If that ever leaves Hasbro, there are much more deserving companies, in my opinion. It would likely need to be something like the agreement with Diamond has for Marvel Select. I don't see it happening, though -- but only time will tell.

I will admit that I do like the Warhammer stuff he has put out for the most part.